Keratin Treatment at Home

TheKeratin Treatmentat Home – How to Get Professional Results

A Keratin Treatment at home is simple enough when you know how, and it’s easy to get professional, salon quality results yourself, with no formal training or specialist equipment.

Follow these simple tips to achieve a really professional finish, and you’ll enjoy perfectly easy to manage, frizz-free hair for months.

If you’re searching for a high quality Brazilian Keratin treatment to use yourself, or on clients, you should check out our online store. We sell Brazil’s leading treatments and delivery is free worldwide, including to United States.

All you need to apply a home Keratin Treatment is a good hair brush, a dryer and straightening irons. Plus an hour or two, depending on the length and thickness of your hair.

Before you start your home Keratin treatment

The most important thing to say is that rushing the job will not work. You need to take your time, work slowly and be patient.

• A good product is vital too, but you don’t want to hear us advertise here, so I’ll let you decide which Keratin straightening product is right for you. (But don’t be surprised if your $23 product only lasts one or two washes, or leaves your hair dry)

• Do a little research, choose a product, ask some questions, then decide.

Pre-Treatment Clarifying shampoos
It’s generally considered best to use what’s known as a clarifying shampoo before applying a Keratin straightening treatment.

It’s certainly true that any treatment you apply will work better on clean hair. By which I mean, hair that’s not coated with the residues of any other hair products you’ve used recently, or build ups of grime and pollution.

When you use a Keratin smoothing product, it’s useful to prepare your hair by making it more absorbent and ‘receptive’. That’s why many clarifying shampoos include a small amount of Keratin, to create a ‘molecular bridge’, which in English means it allows for deeper infusion of Keratin.

Enough of the science. I’m happy to answer questions about how clarifying shampoos work, . But in conclusion, I should just say that anti residual shampoos are powerful hair cleaners.

By the way. When you use a pre-treatment shampoo always work from the top of your scalp down and always with the natural flow of your hair, rather than against it.

Once completed, it’s time to move on to the application. But before we do, I’d like to quickly mention, that one of the biggest mistakes you can make when applying at-home Keratin straightening treatments is to rush.

Another is not following instructions accurately.

So take your time, relax, don’t get stressed and enjoy it. Your hair will love you for this.

A quick note to stylists at this point. The biggest reason we hear from clients of professionals, applying all types of straightening treatments, who are unhappy with their in-salon Keratin treatment is the result of the stylist being impatient.

Keratin Treatment at Home- 3 things you need to know before starting

Before I go any further, and especially if you’re planning to apply your treatment right now, (I know a lot of folk hit this blog post at the last minute), let me give you 3 quick things to consider, which are equally valid whether you’re a professional, or an at homeKeratin Treatment user.

1. Keratin is a slow acting protein, it needs time to work properly
2. Great results require a great application, as well as a high quality product
3. The treatment itself will remain active for several days, even after rinsing

Let’s take that from the top.
First off, the biggest mistake most users make is to think an at-home Keratin straightening treatment can be rushed. It can’t.
(A major problem for stylists offering the Keratin treatment in-salon is trying to rush clients through)

These treatments use a base of amino acids, usually Keratin, but also Kreatin and Cysteine, which work very differently to traditional straightening or colouring products.

Think of it like this:
While conventional straighteners, perms and relaxers literally break and rebuild your hair, a Keratin treatment works in a much gentler way, by gradually infusing it with natural proteins, which bond with and strengthen existing protein levels, to create complex chains within each follicle.

Sounds confusing, but as we all know, the result is ‘plumper’, straighter hair, that’s better hydrated and less prone to frizz or curl. But rather than locking down the transformation, by chemically altering your hair permanently, the change is more of a wave, that begins with the application and doesn’t really end until you re-apply, or the nutrients are completely washed out, which can take months.

That’s why we talk about results fading gradually, and it’s rare to see a marked difference in new hair growth as you would with say a perm. In fact, because of the penetrative nature of Keratin, fresh growth often looks more glossy than it did prior to treatment.

IMPORTANT:

A Great Home Keratin Treatment Requires a Great Application

And that means you have to follow the instructions and not be tempted to freestyle. The same as you would when you bleach, relax or perm. (Believe me, I’m saying this from experience)

I probably answer around 20 emails a week from users who have gone ‘off message’, while applying various at-home Keratin treatments and are in need of help.

And the 3 most common misconceptions they make are that:

Using more product will create a stronger straightening effect Waiting longer than recommended times will prolong results Increasing the heat of the irons will make for straighter hair

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The proteins you apply with a Keratin treatment are highly concentrated, and as we’ve already seen, they are readily soaked up by hair, but you really don’t need that much for an outstanding result. Applying anything more than a light coating is absolutely wasted, and will only make things more difficult later on.

Same goes for what we call in the trade ‘downtime’, the 20 minutes or so you wait before drying and straightening your hair after application. Whether it’s one of our best selling Brazilian straightening treatments, or another product, the instructions will be written for optimal results.

Another common mistake is to think that having your irons turned up to full power will enhance the straightening effect of a home Keratin treatment. And again, it’s a common error made by inexperienced stylists too, so watch out if your local salon just began offering this service.

The best quality Keratin straighteners should not need anything hotter than 220 degrees to activate and seal the treatment. By the way, our top tip when it comes to straightening your hair, is to work very, very thoroughly and systematically, passing over each section of hair at least 4 or 5 times, allowing to cool slightly between passes.

Using electric irons is never good for our hair, and at temperatures of 400 degrees plus, you’re essentially doing what cooks call baking, so it’s much better to go for more passes at a lower temperature.

After using a Keratin Treatment at home don’t do much for 3 days

Take it easy, or at least, let your hair take it easy. Keep it straight and loose, and avoid wearing a ponytail or bunches. Because, Keratin is a slow worker, it needs time to settle down and for a few days at least, it’s still actively looking for cracks to fill and damage to repair.

• You certainly shouldn’t use shampoo for at least a day, and then I only recommend a salt free product. Actually, if you really love your hair, I’d advise salt free shampoos every time.

If you notice any unwanted kinks or waves in the morning following your treatment, use a dryer and rounded or paddle brush to work them out. This has the bonus of ‘forcing’ an extra boost from the Keratin treatment too.

After that, your life should be a breeze and you’ll be happily frizz free for months to come.

OK. That just about wraps this one up, but before I go here are 5 of my top tips for at home Keratin treatment newbies to consider.

• Rounded brushes work best with Keratin products
• So do Titanium straightening irons
• The more you wash your hair the faster the treatment will wash out
• For a really sharp finish wait a day or two and get your ends trimmed. Not only does it look totally diva, it also prevents further breakage for months indefinitely.
• The quality of the product you use is really, really important.You need to check out:Our favourite Home Keratin Treatment(Ver en Español / This article in Spanish)

Thanks for this guide. I actually found it after using Zene Progress the first time, but it looks like I did everything right. Loving the results and I’ve bookmarked the page now, for my next application.
Great product by the way. My hair’s fabulous. Never thought I’d find a treatment that could tame my frizz. Cheers, Dolores.

Jenni
on July 20, 2013 at 11:43 am

This is the first Keratin treatment I’ve tried and I have to say I’m really pleased with the results. It’s really cool that you have all this info for us newcomers.
Thanks for a great site